Issue Date: May 27, 2000
City: Lake Buena Vista, FL
Quantity: 88,000,000
Printed By: Sterling Sommers for Ashton-Potter (USA) Ltd
Printing Method: Lithographed
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored

America’s football fields, baseball diamonds, and basketball courts have never been so full of children playing competitive and recreational sports. Youth athletics have grown to include more than just school-based teams. Select “travel clubs,” made up of kids specially chosen for advanced play, have sprung up around the U.S. Sports like hockey, once just a winter activity, are now played all year. During the off-season, kids travel to sports clinics to improve their skills.

 

The National Sporting Goods Association says that basketball, soccer, ice hockey, and golf are a few of the sports that saw the highest increase in youth participants in recent years. Parents say competitive athletics keep their children happy and out of trouble. Kids play for the sheer fun of the game and to be active with their friends. They are proud of being chosen for a team, and proud of the skills they acquire to get there.

 

Involvement in team sports benefits children in obvious ways. It helps them discover self-confidence, cooperation, perseverance, discipline, and sportsmanship.

 

Actual photographs of children playing sports were used for this stamp issue. Because the Postal Service does not allow living people to be depicted on stamps, designers altered each child’s facial features.